Publications

ETC Group at the World Social Forum 2011, Dakar, Senegal, 4-11 February

This week ETC Group travels to Dakar to meet friends and partners – new, old and yet-to-be – to learn, listen and share information about corporate power and emerging technologies, including their impacts on marginalized communities. In the run-up to the Rio+20 Summit in May 2012, the international community will be confronted with a challenging list of so-called ‘green economy’ technology and policy proposals – as well as major agricultural and environmental institutional decisions. Dakar’s World Social Forum gives civil society an opportunity to share research and plan actions in the months and years ahead.

Here’s where ETC Group & friends will be over the next week and a half.  Times, locations and local contact details will be updated on our website (www.etcgroup.org) as they become... Read more

In the name of moving “beyond petroleum,” Big Oil, Gene Giants, governments, start-ups and others are forming partnerships that will extend corporate control over more resources in every part of the globe – while keeping the root causes of climate change intact. With grudging recognition that first-generation agrofuels are neither economical nor ecological, investors turn to other life-based technologies, including synthetic biology, for the next alternative fuel fix. Issue: In OECD countries, massive government incentives and subsidies – estimated to be as high as US$15 billion/year – are stoking the agrofuels1 boom and spurring unprecedented alliances that extend corporate power over a larger share of the world’s resources.2 Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Brains (and more) are teaming up to reap the only certain benefit of agrofuels – increased profits. In this Communiqué, ETC Group maps the new corporate alliances propelled by (and propelling) the scramble for... Read more

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEGOTIATORS warned to LOOK BEFORE LEAPING!

Civil Society Alarmed at Climate Technology Quick Fixes in Copenhagen 

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ON BEHALF OF AD HOC COALITION: LET’S LOOK BEFORE WE LEAP!

MEDIA ADVISORY

Alert to climate negotiators:

LETS LOOK BEFORE WE LEAP!

GAPING OVERSIGHT:  NO ASSESSMENT IN TECHNOLOGY TEXT

An international group of more than 150 civil society groups from 36 countries will release a joint declaration calling upon governments in Copenhagen to revamp the draft text on technology transfer, to ensure that the precautionary principle is respected and that high-risk and unproven climate “techno-fixes” are not allowed to put the world at risk.

WHO:   Third World Network and ETC Group with other signatories of declaration.

WHEN: Thursday,  December 10 2009 at 9:00 AM

WHERE: BELLA CENTRE, Hall H, Asger Jorn Room, Copenhagen

This press conference will be webcast.

Check Read more

Technology transfer is one of the four key topics being discussed under negotiations on Long-Term Cooperative Actions in Copenhagen (the others are mitigation, adaptation and financing). The inter-governmental negotiating text that is under discussion contemplates various measures for accelerating the diffusion of technologies. It will most likely create an ʻAction Planʼ as well as a ʻTechnology Bodyʼ and various technical panels or innovation centres that will prove influential in the coming years in deciding which technologies get financial and political backing. We need to make sure the right technologies get the support they need and the wrong ones are discarded. That wonʼt happen without a comprehensive social and environmental assessment process. We, civil society groups and social movements from around the world, understand the urgent need for real and lasting solutions to climate change. We recognise the deadly consequences that we all face... Read more

¿De verdad Obama promueve la geoingeniería? Las declaraciones de su asesor científico son muy peligrosas

Ottawa, abril de 2009 El pasado 8 de abril Associated Press informó que la Casa Blanca podría considerar seriamente la geoingeniería —incluyendo la radical propuesta de disparar nanopartículas de sulfato a la atmósfera—, según John Holdren, Jefe Asesor Científico de Estados Unidos.(1) Dichas declaraciones están causando alarma. “Si esta es una prueba para explorar qué aceptación tiene Obama de la geoinigeniería, la Casa Blanca debería rechazarla inmediatamente”, dice Pat Mooney, director ejecutivo del Grupo ETC, organización de la sociedad civil con sede en Ottawa, que ha estado monitoreando las... Read more

(y ganar una playera) Se acerca la fecha límite para participar en la competencia de geoingeniería  “Tapando el sol con un dedo”

Grupo ETC Boletín de prensa 4 de marzo de 2009 www.etcgroup.org

OTTAWA, 4 de marzo de 2009. A menos de un mes del ciere de la convocatoria del Grupo ETC a la competencia “Tapando el sol con un dedo”, personas de todo el mundo han enviado sus excéntricas ideas para rediseñar el planeta, de modo que el planeta (junto con nosotros) pueda sobre vivir el cambio climático. Las propuestas de algunos geoingenieros profesionales para manipular los suelos, el mar y la atmósfera en gran escala ya están llevándose a cabo: propuestas para desparecer las emisiones, evitar que la luz del sol llegue a la Tierra y, por supuesto, para lucrar con el mercado de carbono.

Esos... Read more

À qui appartient la nature?

Pouvoir des grandes sociétés et ultime frontière de la marchandisation du vivant

Problèmes, obsessions et occasions : une préface

TIl y a trente ans, l’humanité avait un problème; la science avait une obsession; et l’industrie tenait une occasion. Notre problème était l’injustice. Les rangs des affamés ne cessaient de grossir et les rangs des agriculteurs, de s’affaiblir. De son côté, la science était obsédée par la biotechnologie – la possibilité de modifier génétiquement les cultures et le bétail (et l’être humain) pour les doter de traits qui allaient régler tous nos problèmes. L’industrie agroalimentaire tenait l’occasion de prélever l’énorme valeur ajoutée tout au long de la... Read more